


Nothing Lasts

by ssrhpurgatory



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pre-Canon, at the end, but otherwise this is almost sweet, implied gore, while Lovelace and Minkowski clean up what's left of Hilbert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2020-08-20 22:09:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20235166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory
Summary: A pre-canon Hilbert fic, with a version of My Terrible OC who didn't get her life fucked up in college. Two middle-aged people with strong personalities try to make space for a relationship while work pulls them in other directions. Originally written June 2019, backdated.





	Nothing Lasts

_September 30th, 1990_

“—wait, really? You have to be joking, Rosie.” The voice of Karl’s lab manager, Janet Zhou, echoed down the hallway, uncharacteristically relaxed and cheerful.

“No, I swear, it was this big!” Another female voice answered Janet, the woman sounding rather as if she was holding back laughter.

“So what did you do?”

“I mean, what else could I do? I had to wrestle the damn thing into a trash bag and shove it out an airlock. No telling what might have happened if I'd let it keep growing. I know resources are scarce in space, but that sort of thing is _well_ beyond my pay grade.”

Karl had reached the door to his lab manager’s office and peeked in cautiously. To his shock, Janet’s visitor—a round-bodied black woman with a head of short salt-and-pepper curls, gone more salt than pepper—was perchedon the edge of Janet’s desk, one leg tucked up under the other. Karl had never seen anyone who dared be so casual with Janet. He had never even heard Janet laugh, but here she was, making a noise halfway between a giggle and a snort as a result of whatever story the woman on her desk had told.

Karl paused in the open doorframe and knocked cautiously on it, and both women turned his way, Janet’s face smoothing out into its usual blandness and the woman on Janet’s desk shooting him a friendly grin.

“Dr. Kelley. Thank you for being prompt about arriving for your weekly review for once.” Janet did not sound as if she were actually thankful. She sounded rather as if she were resenting his prompt arrival.

From the look of comical chagrin the woman on Janet’s desk shot his way, she had picked up on the tone too. “I'll get out of your hair, Janet fair. My new lab manager is probably wondering where I've disappeared off to, anyway. He seems overly intent on making sure I adjust to life back on earth and seems to think checking in on me every hour is a necessary part of the process,” the woman said, rolling her eyes and then sliding off Janet’s desk. “Let me give you some advice, Dr. Kelley: never go to space. You'll come back to find your old lab occupied and your old lab manager promoted to a higher tier of projects and you'll resent it.”

“Er.” Karl said.

“Indeed,” Janet added, a little smile making its way onto her face. “Manners dictate that I probably ought to introduce the two of you,” Janet added, and Karl found himself staring. Was that a hint of dry humor in his lab manager’s voice? “Dr. Karl Kelley, Dr. Rosemary Epps. Dr. Epps is our resident microbio savant, Dr. Kelley. And Rosie, Dr. Kelley works mainly with retroviruses and radiology.”

Dr. Epps rubbed her hands together, a gleeful expression on her face. “Oh, _excellent. _I'll have to sit down with you at some point and see if there are any places our research overlaps. I do enjoy a good joint research project—two minds are better than one, they always say.” She held a hand out to Karl and he took it cautiously. Dr. Epps enveloped his hand in a warm, firm handshake, the gleeful expression never quite leaving her face.

“It is good to meet you,” Karl said hesitantly, watching her face for any sign of the dismissal he had so often seen on the faces of the other scientists here at Goddard when they first heard his accent. The friendly cheer on Dr. Epps’ face showed no signs of flagging, though her eyes did widen a little. “I would be happy to discuss potential for joint projects with you.”

“I look forward to having a more intimate conversation in the future, then,” Dr. Epps said, her grin broadening. She squeezed his hand a little more tightly for a moment and then released it.

“I'm not certain that intimate is the word you were looking for there, Rosie,” Janet said. There it was again, startling evidence that somewhere under her staid demeanor, Karl’s lab manager had a dry sense of humor.

Dr. Epps gave Karl a quick look up and down, the sort of look that made it very clear she was undressing him with her eyes, albeit in an almost clinical sort of fashion. “Perhaps not,” she said, sounding as if she was about to laugh again, “But I certainly wouldn't say _no_ to a more intimate interview with Dr. Kelley, if one was on offer.”

Janet was smiling again. “You're worse than a stray cat in heat. Get out of my office and stop flirting with Dr. Kelley before you make him blush any harder. He clashes enough with his shirt as it is.”

“Yes, back to the tender mercies of Owen the overzealous lab manager for me,” Dr. Epps said with a sigh. “I'll see you later,” she said to Karl, her voice full of implied meaning and her expression flirtatious, “And I’ll come by later in the week with coffee?” she asked in Janet’s direction.

Janet nodded, back to the staid professional lab manager persona that Karl was used to.

“One good thing that's come out of this—we get to be friends now,” Dr. Epps said, still obviously talking to Janet, and then she whirled around and made her way out of Janet’s office, shooting Karl another friendly smile and shutting the door behind her. Janet shook her head and pulled a file out of the drawer of her desk, opening it and turning her attention to Karl, who was feeling a little bit as if he'd just been trying to keep his footing in the middle of a hurricane.

“Sit down, Dr. Kelley, and let's discuss your progress.”

“Yes, of course,” Karl said, his mind still on the woman who had just left the room.

Janet must have noticed. “Don't pay Rosie any mind, Dr. Kelley. She's an incorrigible flirt, but if it bothers you just let her know and she'll put a halt to it.” Janet paused for a moment, as if considering something. “Good person to have on your side, though. She's been doing research for Goddard since she finished her bachelor’s degree, and she's good at making connections, so she knows how to work the system.”

Karl knew that it was probably Janet’s way of expressing her disappointment that he did not seem to be getting along any better with the other scientists in the building than he had when he had arrived nearly two years ago. Well, what was he supposed to do, when they went cold and stiff from the moment they heard his accent? He certainly was not going to seek out the company of people who so obviously wanted nothing to do with him, not when their reason for snubbing him was so silly and so obviously motivated by politics that he suspected they barely paid attention to in the first place.

But clearly, as Janet was hinting, Dr. Epps was not one of those people. Well, perhaps the acquaintance would be worth furthering.

Janet cleared her throat, and Karl turned his attention back to her and their weekly meeting.

* * *

_October 16th, 1990_

Rosemary was on her way back from the cafeteria with two to-go cups of coffee when she spotted Dr. Kelley. It had been a couple of weeks since she'd met him in Janet’s office, and she hadn't seen anything of him since. He’d just veered onto the path in front of her, probably on his way back from the archives… or at least, that was one of the paths that lead towards the archives, and the thunderous look on his face was of the sort which Adriane tended to be the cause of.

“Hey!” She called out, and when he didn't turn, she yelled “Dr. Kelley! Wait up!” after him and broke into a brisk pace halfway between a walk and a jog, trying to catch up to him. Fortunately, he stopped and turned at the sound of his name, and he watched her approach with a little frown on his face that Rosemary was determined to not take personally. After all, Adriane could ruin anyone’s day.

She was puffing for breath by the time she reached his side and mentally cursing the fact that she wasn't used to the pull of gravity yet. She always told herself after a rotation on a space station that this one would be the last one, and she always came up with something else that eventually needed testing in space. Of course, she was getting on in years; maybe it was time to start letting other, younger people do the work for her.

“Rough day?” she asked once she'd caught her breath again.

Dr Kelley sighed. “I lost my temper with Adriane,” he admitted, matching Rosemary’s pace as they started back towards the lab complex.

“Oh dear. You end up with a ban?”

“One month,” he said, shame-faced.

“Oh, Dr. Kelley, you _didn't._”

“Yes, I should know better than to swear at that woman. But in my defense, I did not realize she spoke Afrikaans.”

“Hm,” said Rosemary. “Neither did I. I'll have to add it to the list. Probably falls under the general Germanic umbrella, though, doesn't it?”

“You are saying I made, what is phrase? A rookie mistake?” Dr. Kelley’s expression had lightened somewhat.

Rosemary laughed. “Something like that, yeah. She _is _German, after all.” She looked down at the coffees in her hands to make sure she knew which was which, then offered the one she'd purchased for herself to Dr. Kelley. “It sounds like you've had a really grotty day so far. Would coffee make it better?”

Dr. Kelley eyed the cup longingly, then shook his head. “I could not take your coffee.”

Rosemary laughed again, trying to put the stiff-seeming scientist further at ease. “It's fine. I mostly got it so Janet wouldn't be the only one with a beverage, but honestly, I shouldn't drink coffee at this time of day. At my age, I'll be up all night if I drink it now, so I was going to end up pouring most of it down the sink anyway.” Rosemary thrust it closer to Dr. Kelley, who eyed the cup again, then took it. “It's black,” she added.

Dr. Kelley took a sip and closed his eyes for a moment, his expression almost blissful. “Thank you,” he said. “I needed that.”

Rosemary smiled. There. Clearly coffee was key to making this man lose the stiff formality he'd exhibited when she'd encountered him in Janet’s office. “So,” she said, easing into the topic. “We should set up a time to sit down and talk research at some point.”

Dr. Kelley made a face and took another sip of the coffee. “Am setting up next major trial phase of research at moment,” he said. “Forgive me. I have little time to think of anything else.”

“That explains why I haven't seen hide or, well, hide of you for the past couple of weeks,” Rosemary said nonchalantly.

He shot a confused look her way.

“It's usually hide or hair, but since you haven't got hair, I… wow. That was a really bad joke. Sorry.” Rosemary winced, feeling her face flush.

“Yes, it was.” Dr. Kelley’s voice was dry, but he did not seem overly offended.

“Well.” Rosemary tried to pick up the original thread of the conversation again.“Um. Do you think things will be progressing along all right in another month or so? We could sit down at the scientists’ Thanksgiving.”

Dr. Kelley made another face. “I, ah, was not planning to attend this year.”

Rosemary frowned. “Too much work to do, or…?”

“Something like that,” Dr. Kelley said, looking uncomfortable. Rosemary found herself thinking of something Janet had said the week before, when Rosemary had dropped in with coffee for a longer chat. Most of the other scientists in the lab seemed to have decided to distrust Dr. Kelley by default for being Russian, given the still-tense international relations between Russia and the rest of the world, and Janet thought that those few who might have been friendly had been put off by Dr. Kelley’s stiff and somewhat dour personality.

Rosemary thought that Dr. Kelley was probably like Janet, with a dry sense of humor hidden under layers of formality. She looked forward to trying to tease it out of him. “Well, if you do find yourself with the time to drop in, I know _I’d_ be glad to see you there,” she said, putting as much sincerity into her voice as she could muster.

Dr. Kelley glanced at Rosemary, and she smiled at him. A light blush spread across his cheeks and he looked back at the coffee. “This is much better than the cafeteria coffee usually is,” he muttered.

“Ah, well, you have to know when to go,” Rosemary said airily. “Between two and seven on Tuesdays and Thursdays, there's a Ukrainian grandmother named Ekaterina working in there. The coffee is never up to her standards, so she always brews a fresh pot.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Dr. Kelley said. “That does explain why the food is a little more tolerable at dinner time on those days.”

Rosemary laughed, and the blush spread to Dr. Kelley’s ears. They'd reached the front door of the lab complex and Rosemary pulled out her keycard, letting them both in. Dr. Kelley held the door for her, and they repeated the process on the door to the stairs, exchanging a few more brief comments on the quality of the cafeteria food as they climbed the stairs. They parted ways on the second floor, Rosemary heading to Janet’s office and Dr. Kelley continuing up the stairs to the floor his lab was on. Before Rosemary pushed through the door, Dr. Kelley lifted the cup of coffee as if to toast her.

“Thank you again for the coffee,” he said, his cheeks still looking a little flushed, though that could just be from the exertion of climbing the stairs, or the fact that man who set the overall temperature for the lab building thought 75 degrees Fahrenheit was acceptable the minute it dropped below 70 outside. “And… perhaps I will see you. At the scientists’ Thanksgiving,” he finished awkwardly.

Rosemary grinned up at him. “I'd like that,” she said. “I really would.”

The flushed color on Dr. Kelley’s cheeks spread to his ears again, and he turned and almost ran up the stairs. Rosemary suppressed the urge to giggle. There was something adorable about his awkwardness.

“He’s gay,” Janet said bluntly, when Rosemary mentioned running in to Dr. Kelley on her walk back to the lab complex.

Rosemary’s eyebrows shot upwards. “Well, Janet fair, I wasn’t exactly planning on sleeping with him. Just… flirting a little.”

“I’m just saying, don’t expect him to reciprocate,” Janet said, taking a sip of her coffee. She’d been surprised that, even after three and a half years in space, Rosemary still remembered how she liked it. Three sugars and a hefty dollop of cream. “Did you really get this from the cafeteria?”

Rosemary considered telling Janet about Ekaterina, but decided that while Dr. Kelley could be trusted not to spread the knowledge, telling Janet would inevitably leak down to Janet’a assistant and from there would make its way to the entire administration staff of the lab complex, and there would go Rosemary’s miraculous ability to get good coffee from the cafeteria. “Mmm-hmm,” she said, taking a sip from the can of ginger ale she’d snagged out of the admin level’s kitchenette fridge.

“Do you know someone dealing in black market coffee beans there, or…?”

Rosemary laughed. “I’m taking this secret to my grave.”

“You’re a cruel and selfish woman, Rosemary Epps.”

“No, I just like being able to bribe people with good coffee.”

Janet raised an eyebrow and glanced at the to-go cup. “And what is this bribery for?”

“Good conversation,” Rosemary said, taking another sip of her ginger ale. “Oh, and all the _rest_ of the gossip I’ve missed over the past three and a half years.”

“I suppose this coffee _might_ be worth a good three months worth of gossip…” Janet said, smiling.

“You drive a hard bargain, Janet fair. Now let’s get me back up to speed, hm?”

* * *

_November 22nd, 1990_

The scientists’ Thanksgiving took place in one of the big conference rooms in the administrative building on Goddard’s campus. Last year, when Karl had received his first invitation to it, he'd been told that it was a social event that was supposed to bring a sense of community and family to Goddard’s corps of researchers and their lab assistants, many of whom were without family… or at least, without family they could travel to easily during the single day they had off for the holiday.

It did seem to Karl that more than a usual number of Goddard employees did not have families of their own, or were on poor terms with the family they did have. He, of course, had always found the idea of building a family unappealing—and likely impossible, at least in the sense of passing on his genetic material. Volgograd had seen to that. He supposed that he could have found some nice Russian girl who had not wanted children of her own, or a widow who already had them, and settled down into married life, but he would have had no idea what to do with a life of pleasant domesticity… and would have had very little idea of what to do with a woman in the first place. And with the current political climate in Russia… well, forget settling down with a man. Having a male roommate might have been acceptable when he was in his twenties, but by his current age, such arrangements were looked upon with suspicion, and he had already been in trouble with the party.

The food at the event was set up buffet style, a mixture of offerings from the company and individual dishes brought by the scientists who enjoyed cooking. This year, someone had made rolls; they sat at the end of the table in a pile smelling strongly of yeast and butter, completely overshadowing the ones that Goddard had provided for the meal. A little bit of poking through the baked goods in the dessert section uncovered two pies, also obviously homemade, one pecan and one pumpkin. No one had broken in to the desserts yet, so Karl took a hefty slice of the pecan pie before anyone else could discover it.

“Dr. Kelley! Over here!”

Karl turned to find Dr. Epps standing near one of the tables, waving frantically at him. He acknowledged her with a little wave of his own, then finished filling his plate and headed her direction. The room was set up a bit like a lecture hall, long tables with chairs along one side, and Dr. Epps had saved him a chair at the very end of one of the tables. Did she know that he preferred to avoid the stilted conversations that seemed to be the best he could manage with most of the other people in the room, or did she just want to have his attention all to herself?

There was a pitcher of water and glasses—both for water and for wine—on the table near her. As he approached, she pulled a smallish wine bottle out of a bag at her side. “Please tell me you like Riesling,” she said, smiling at him. “Because otherwise I’ll wind up drinking most of this bottle on my own, and I get really silly when I’m boozy.”

Karl blinked in surprise, and found he was blushing a bit. He had only encountered Dr. Epps twice before, but both times she had definitely been flirting with him, and bringing a bottle of wine especially for the two of them… well. That almost seemed like she was _courting_ him for some reason. It left him feeling a bit ill at ease.

Dr. Epps seemed to notice his sudden awkwardness as he sat down. “Too much? I brought it for myself, you know—I didn’t actually think you’d show up.” She gave him a kind smile. “But I did hope you would. And I thought maybe alcohol would break the ice, as it were. But if you don’t drink—”

“I drink,” Karl said, a little cautiously. “Forgive me. I am not used to…” he trailed off. He was not used to people choosing to be friendly to him; instead, he had found that others only chose friendliness when they wished to gain some concession from him. And perhaps Dr. Epps did want something from him, but it was wrong of him to lead with suspicion, especially when he suspected that what she wanted was a good long chat with another person who might also be interested in microbial lifecycles. The lack of other high-level researchers in microbiology and virology had not struck Karl as strange before, but now that he had met Dr. Epps, he was wondering about it. Had this one woman been holding down an entire area of research at Goddard on her own?

Dr. Epps was watching him curiously, as if waiting for him to continue. When he did not, she shrugged and pulled a corkscrew out of her bag, opening the bottle and pouring a glass of wine for each of them.

“Hey now, Rosie, aren’t you going to share with the rest of us?” came a querulous voice from the table behind them.

Dr. Epps turned to eye the person who had spoken, a physicist whose name Karl had learned once and immediately forgotten. “I’m not going to waste good wine on you when you’d be just as happy with a box of cheap red, Hector,” she said, smiling. “And if you go take a look under the buffet table, you’ll find I made sure a veritable tower of the same got delivered earlier today.”

“You’re a saint, Rosie,” the other scientist said, and made his way back to the front of the room. The boxes were pulled out, along with several bottles of mead, and the buzz of conversation in the room got a bit louder as the people surrounding them started pouring out glasses of alcohol.

Dr. Epps ate a chunk of gravy-soaked turkey, then turned her smile to Karl. “So. How goes the research? The latest trial phase of your retrovirus proceeding apace?”

Karl nodded, awkward and unsure about how much he was allowed to tell her. Janet had warned him that Dr. Epps had a lower clearance level than he did, “since it seems likely that the two of you will be collaborating eventually,” Janet had said. “So don’t you bring up anything about the human testing; that’s something she’s not cleared to know about.”

Dr. Epps was waiting patiently for his response, snagging another piece of turkey off her plate, but when he did not offer up anything other than the nod and instead started in on his own meal, she shrugged again and continued. “I’m still busy wrapping up all the research I did out on Janus station. I’ve got something I think I might want to consult with you about—Janet said you’re a radiologist, right?” When Karl nodded, she continued. “One of my biomass samples got exposed to some pretty nasty stellar radiation and there were some, ah, unexpected side effects. I’ve got the readouts of the event it was exposed to, but I honestly can’t make heads or tails of them, and I’ve got no idea why it had the effect it did on my sample, and, of course, the radiologist who was out there with me didn’t know enough about microbiology to offer any useful feedback. But if you’re a virologist, well, I thought maybe you’d at least have a passing familiarity with microbiology as well…” She trailed off, looking at him hopefully.

“I could spare an afternoon or two next week,” Karl offered up hesitantly.

Dr. Epps’ smile was blinding. “Excellent. I have my check-ins with my lab manager on Mondays, but any other afternoon is free. Just come on down to the fourth floor and find my lab.”

“Perhaps Tuesday,” he offered up, suddenly raspy. His mouth seemed to have dried out completely, so he took a sip of water before continuing. “I could bring you coffee? I still owe you a cup.”

Dr. Epps waved her hand dismissively. “Nonsense. You don’t owe me anything for that.Like I said, coffee in the afternoon will keep me up all night, and it was worth giving up the sip or two I would have actually had to make someone else’s day a little brighter.”

“Hey, Rosemary?” The person on Dr. Epps’ other side tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned to look at him. “Can I have a quick word with you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The man shot Karl a look over Dr. Epps’ shoulder. “Privately, please.”

Dr. Epps sighed and stood, then pressed a hand to Karl’s shoulder for a moment. “Be right back, all right?” Then she followed the man across the room, where they appeared to be having a whispered conversation that Dr. Epps was finding increasingly irritating, ending in her gesticulating violently at the man and saying, loudly enough that Karl could hear her from across the room, “Well it doesn’t really matter what you think, now does it? For gods sake, let me make my own judgement call here.” And then she turned away from the man, clearly in a huff, and stormed her way back to Karl. “Honestly,” she said, sitting down again, and turning her back decisively on the man, who had considered sitting down next to Dr. Epps again and who had instead gathered up his plate and cup and gone to join a different table. “It’s not like it isn’t _obvious_ that you’re Russian. I don’t need to be _warned_ about it,” she said, her voice loud and her tone scathing. She picked up her wine glass and downed the contents in a single gulp, then poured herself another glass.

Karl blushed up to his ears again, but he suspected she was warning off anyone else who might take it into their heads to inform her of his nationality.

“Now, where were we?” Dr. Epps asked, turning back towards Karl with a pleasant smile.

Bit by bit, as they ate their meals and drank their way through the rest of what Karl realized after the first sip was a very superior bottle of wine, Dr. Epps coaxed him through a congenial—and collegial—conversation. She seemed to realize that he did not feel comfortable talking about his current research projects, so instead she asked him about his areas of interest, his schooling. She touched briefly on his past, but when he had winced and tried to think of a good way to get out of talking about Volgograd, she moved on smoothly to the subject of how he was adjusting to life at Goddard and in the United States. After a while, to keep her from asking any more awkward questions, he started shooting questions back her way, and by the end of the evening he found himself relaxed enough to laugh at some of the ridiculous stories she had to tell about trying to hold down a research position at Goddard and complete her doctorate at the same time.

“Coffee was most definitely my best friend back then,” she said. “And that’s when I met Ekaterina. She saw me wandering the cafeteria with a vacant look in my eyes one day and decided right then and there to adopt me and make sure I was always properly caffeinated.”

Karl let out a little snort of laughter, and then noticed suddenly that it seemed much louder in his ears than it had earlier in the evening. He glanced around the room, and realized that except for a small group on the other side of the room, they were the only other people in the conference room.

“What time is it?” he asked.

Rosemary—at some point in the evening, she had asked him whether they could drop the formalities and call one another by their first names—shoved up her sleeve and took a look at her watch. “Almost nine.”

Karl blinked, surprised. The meal had started at three that afternoon, and while he had arrived a little late, he was pretty sure he had been in the room by half past that hour. Somehow, five hours had gone by in the blink of the eye. For the first time since he had come to work at Goddard, Karl found himself feeling relaxed, comfortable, like he had a friend. The alcohol was probably partly responsible, he thought, but Rosemary also had a charming way about her, and she had spent the afternoon and evening focusing all of that charm on him.

He still could not quite bring himself to trust it, but for the moment, it was nice.

* * *

Rosemary watched the surprise on Karl’s face as she told him what time it was, feeling a strange rush of fondness for this man she’d only spoken to a few times, this evening included. He wasn’t quite like Janet, she’d learned over the course of the evening; his reticence wasn’t so much formality as it seemed to be that he wasn’t sure how much of his life he was allowed to talk about with other people. She also got the sense that he was the sort that had never been overly comfortable with other human beings. His reactions to her silly stories had been delayed from time to time, as if he’d been waiting to see her emotional response to something she was saying before committing to laughter himself. His own sense of humor seemed to be a bit darker than her own; a few of his biting, sardonic observations of life at Goddard—and in particular, of Mr. Carter, the man who currently ran the show—had been equal parts hilarious and distressing. He must have been recruited directly by Carter, she thought. It was obvious that he was a covert recruit; Karl Kelley was so clearly a pseudonym, and a really terrible one at that.

“I think I’m going to raid the dessert table for leftovers and head back to my apartment with them for a pot of decaf,” she said, tilting her head to one side and watching Karl carefully. “Would you like to join me?”

He hesitated for a moment, and Rosemary almost broke her silence to tell him that it had been a nice evening and she’d see him on Tuesday, but then he nodded and said, in a low, quiet voice, “That would be… nice. I have been enjoying our conversation.”

Rosemary found herself smiling at him again. “Let’s go, then,” she said. She left her plate at the table—someone would be in early the next morning to clean the conference room up—and Karl followed suit, following her over to the dessert table. Both of the pies she’d brought had been reduced to crumbs, but there was still half a storebought pecan pie left, and a bag of cookies she recognized as coming from Jonesy, a chemist and also a really impressive baker. It appeared that everyone had taken a look at them and decided that oatmeal raisin was too plain for Thanksgiving, but Rosemary knew that Jonesy could make even oatmeal raisin appealing, so she handed the pie off to Karl and grabbed the bag. “Let’s go!”

They wandered across the campus to the apartment complex that housed most of the scientists who lived on-site, along with a smattering of the admin staff whose jobs required them to be on call 24-7. Rosemary had considered trying to get an apartment off-campus when she’d returned from her last rotation, but apartment-hunting felt like too much work. At least here the laundry was in the the same building as the apartments and free to use, and she didn’t have to think about purchasing new furniture. She’d sold off or given away the pieces she’d collected between her latest space mission and the one before it, and the thought of beginning again was just as exhausting as the thought of apartment-hunting.

Of course, Rosemary figured that by the time she’d been planet-side for a year or so, she’d have the energy to think about more than just getting through the next day, but even after a month and a half in gravity, she was still exhausted by the end of each day. She wasn’t entirely certain why she’d invited Karl back to her apartment, other than she’d been enjoying his company and hadn’t quite been ready to call the evening to a close, despite feeling like the weight of the entire world was dragging on her bones.

They hadn’t spoken on the walk back to the apartments, but the silence between them felt companionable to Rosemary rather than stilted. When she let them both into her apartment on the second floor, however, his body language went stiff and awkward again, obviously uncomfortable with being alone in her apartment with her.

Though why he’d be uncomfortable, she wasn’t sure. “You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to,” she said, giving him a long, hard look.

“No, I…” He rubbed his free hand across the back of his head awkwardly. “What is this an invitation for, exactly?”

Rosemary blinked in confusion. “Coffee,” she said. “And dessert,” she added, holding up the bag of cookies.

“Perhaps I have, ah, been misreading signals,” Karl said, looking down at the pie he was balancing carefully in his other hand as if he couldn’t bear to look her direction.

“Oh!” Rosemary put a hand to her mouth, first in surprise, then to cover her grin. “So. Janet was misinformed, then.”

“Misinformed?” Karl was the one looking confused now.

“She thinks you’re gay.”

“Ah. Well. She would not be wrong, necessarily,” Karl said, his entire face, bare scalp and all, blushing bright red. “But that is not to say—I mean, I find you attractive, and I think you have been flirting with me…”

“So you’re like me, then,” Rosemary said, her grin broadening. “A bit of both.”

“I suppose so.”

Rosemary bit her lower lip and looked Karl over. “I can’t truthfully say I’m not interested,” she said. “But for tonight, just dessert.”

“And coffee?” Karl asked hopefully, a little smile twitching the corners of his mouth up.

“And coffee,” Rosemary said, smiling back at him.

* * *

Despite the embarrassment it had caused him to be so forthright, to ask Rosemary straight out what she had intended with her flirtatious manner, Karl was glad he had done it. He was not always good at reading intention, but it was reassuring to know that in this one case, he had not been wrong in thinking that Rosemary found him attractive.

And knowing that her kindness, that her flirtation, had been engaged in without any expectations of reciprocation… well. Perhaps she had not just been doing it because she wanted something from him. Perhaps, somehow, some way, this lively woman found him genuinely interesting. He certainly found her interesting, and if he was being entirely honest with himself, his interest was not entirely due to her charming personality. She had a body that… well. If he let his eyes linger too long on certain curves, he found himself considering what those curves would feel like, unclothed and underneath him. He had needed to constantly pull his attention back to what Rosemary had been saying all through dinner, no doubt increasing any impression of reticence she had already had of him, and now that he found himself alone in her apartment with her, with sex on some future date almost hanging like a promise in the air…

Karl sat at Rosemary’s kitchen table and tried not to let his eyes linger on her lower back as she scooped decaf coffee into a filter, and found it impossible. He stood abruptly. “I am sorry. I think…” he trailed off as she turned to look at him, her expression quizzical.

“What's wrong?”

Karl took a deep breath and sighed. “I made a mistake, asking you that. I… it has been a very long time, and I find that all I can think of now is, well…” he trailed off again, gesturing at her helplessly. His voice had lowered to a hoarse growl as he spoke.

He did not know why this woman affected him so, but she did, and he needed to remove himself from her presence before he did something to disgrace himself.

Rosemary’s breath had seemed to catch in her throat as he had spoken, and now she took a deep, shuddering breath. Then she turned to the coffee machine, deliberately dumping the grounds out of the filter and back into the canister she had scooped them out of. As she did this, she spoke, her own voice a little hoarse as well. “Stay,” was all she said. And then she turned to look at him again, a worried, earnest expression on her face. “I don't know if… but it's been a long time for me as well. And I'd usually want to get to know someone a little better before we, well…” she trailed off, looking at him with wide eyes full of longing for a few long, quiet moments. “I've never quite clicked with someone this way,” she finally confessed. “I know we started off awkward, but after we got going, tonight was…” she sighed. “I’m not ready for tonight to end.”

Karl felt as if he was frozen in place as she crossed the kitchen to him, stepped in close, slid her arms up around his shoulders, stood on her toes to pull his face gently down to hers. And then her mouth met his, and he melted into her, pressing into the kiss, sliding his hands around her waist to pull her closer to his body.

Her lips were gentle at first, and he followed her lead, waiting to open his mouth against hers until he felt the little probing flick of her tongue against his lower lip. And then the kiss deepened, and he tasted her properly, letting his tongue caress the inside of her upper lip, easing into the rough slide of her tongue against his, the sensation leaving his mind blank and reeling.

She tasted like the dinner they had eaten, like the bottle of Riesling they had finished together, like salt and sweet and a warm, delicious humanity that was all her own. He found his thoughts returning only long enough to worry about whether she found the taste of him as appealing as he found her, but as she had not yet pulled back from the kiss he assumed that she did not find him objectionable, at least.

After several long minutes where the only sounds were the press of their lips, the rustle of clothing as they clung tightly to one another, then even tighter, they broke apart, both panting for breath. Karl leaned his forehead against Rosemary’s, looking her in the eye, trying to figure out what she was thinking, and she looked back with the same longing, earnest expression on her face as she had worn when crossing the kitchen to him. “Stay,” she whispered, lifting herself up onto her toes so she could brush her mouth against his again.

Karl nodded, completely incapable of speech. Rosemary took him by the hand and lead him out of the kitchen, down the little hall to the living room and the bedroom door that lay just off it, both of them kicking their shoes off along the way. Once in the bedroom Karl tugged on her hand, pulling her around to face him, lowering his lips to hers again in a fierce kiss as he backed her towards the bed. She let out a startled little puff of breath as the back of her legs hit the edge of the bed and she fell against the mattress, Karl following her. There was a little bit of undignified scrambling, and then they were both fully on the bed, Karl still over Rosemary, who had parted her legs to let him settle his hips between them. He ground himself against her, and Rosemary broke the kiss to let out a little whimper, followed by a moan as he thrust his hips firmly between her legs. He was hard, and there was no doubt in his mind that she could feel him, even between the layers of clothing that separated them.

“My name is Dmitri Vologin,” he whispered to her, not knowing why it was suddenly important that this woman know the name he had been given at birth.

Her eyes widened a little, and he wondered if she'd heard of the man he had been before Goddard, but all she said was “Thank god. Karl Kelley is such a dreadful pseudonym.” She brushed light fingers over his scalp and gave him a thoughtful look. “Do you want me to call you Dmitri?”

Karl shook his head. “No. It will be… easier if you do not. I simply…” he sighed, knowing what he was about to say might sound silly. “I simply wanted you to know.”

Instead of finding his lack of reason for the confession humorous, Rosemary instead gave him a serious look. “Thank you,” she said, her voice just as serious as her face. “Thank you for trusting me with who you are.” She lifted his glasses from his face and set them on her bedside table, then cradled his face in her hands, pressing fluttery kisses to his brow ridge, the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth. He groaned and captured her mouth with his once more, grinding hard against her as he tried to devour her. Her thighs clenched on either side of his hips, and he felt one of her hands slide down his side to find his ass and pull him harder against her as he thrust, felt her feet press into the mattress so that she could press back up against him.

He let out a harsh breath and lifted his head to look at her. “Could we not remove some of this clothing?”

Rosemary smiled up at him. “I thought you'd never ask,” she said, her fingers already working on the buttons of her vest. “Last one naked is a rotten egg.”

Karl frowned. “Was hoping to undress you myself,” he panted out, before sitting back on his haunches and pulling his own shirt over his head.

“Under normal circumstances, I’d agree.” Rosemary finished with with her vest and started in on her blouse, giving up after a few of the tiny buttons and just pulling the entire thing over her head, revealing a utilitarian bra that Karl found remarkably appealing. “But I haven't gotten laid in nearly four years, and I'm going to guess you're about as pent-up as I am, so...” Rosemary had wormed her way out of her trousers and underwear by then, as had Karl, and he settled himself back between her legs, letting out a choked gasp as he did. It seemed she was just as aroused as he was; a few short, probing thrusts found her entrance, and he slid into her in one smooth motion, all the way to the hilt. Rosemary let out a little whimper as he did so, and tilted her hips up against his, and he found himself sliding that little bit deeper, enveloped in her warmth.

She was still wearing the utilitarian bra. Karl considered trying to figure out how to unfasten it, but instead he folded one of the lightly padded cups back to expose a nipple and lowered his mouth to it, teasing it with his tongue as he began moving, thrusting gently into her. Rosemary made a strangled noise, running her hands down his chest and finding his own nipples, and he had to drop his head against her chest and moan, losing himself in the sensation.

“This will be very quick if you keep doing that,” he warned her, so instead she slid her arms up around his neck and pulled him into a deep kiss. But after a moment he pulled away from the kiss with a gasp, looking desperately down at Rosemary. “This may be very quick regardless. What can I do…?”

Rosemary let out a little laugh. “You know enough about anatomy to find a clitoris?” she asked, sounding amused.

Karl nodded, and rested all of his weight on one hand as he worked the other down between them, searching out the little nubbin of Rosemary’s clitoris. All of her breath left her in a choked gasp as he found it and started rubbing it firmly, her head falling limply back against the pillows.

“That’s right. Like that,” she murmured, her words turning into a low moan.

Karl smiled and started pressing kisses to Rosemary’s neck and shoulder, continuing his manipulations as best as he could while still thrusting into her, until, to his relief, he felt the walls of her cunt squeeze tight around him. Rosemary let out a little shriek and arched her back hard, almost throwing him off her for a moment. He shut his eyes and let go of the careful control he'd been clinging to, grunting as he thrust a few more times against her and then found his own climax.

Karl collapsed against Rosemary’s chest, sweaty and shaking, with only a passing moment of worry that she might not be able to hold his weight until her arms wrapped around him firmly, holding him to her.

Eventually, he turned his head and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You are rotten egg,” he muttered at her. “Bra never came off.”

Rosemary let out a little snort of laughter, and things shifted between them. “Yeah, well, you’re still wearing your socks,” she shot back as he dove for the box of tissues on her bedside table. He snatched a few for himself and handed the box off to Rosemary, who grabbed her own handful. They cleaned themselves up as best as they could, but even without his glasses, Karl could tell that they'd left a large wet spot on the blanket on Rosemary’s bed. She glanced at it ruefully.

“I am sorry,” Karl said. “I did not get to the tissues soon enough.”

“It's not the mess that's bothering me,” Rosemary responded. “Well, not exactly. It's more that I was so hot for you that I didn't…” she paused, clearly embarrassed, and Karl thought over the evening. Had either of them made any mention of STDs and protection?

“If it is any consolation, I am clean,” he offered up cautiously. “And after a childhood like mine…” he raised a hand unconsciously to run across his bare scalp, one of the legacies he had taken from Volgograd. “Well. Let us just say that I am sterile in other ways as well.”

Rosemary gave him a little smile and reached towards him, tracing her fingers along the bare sweep of his brow ridge. “I'm old enough that isn't a concern, in any case,” she said. “And I'm clean too. We just should have had this conversation before, well, fucking each other's brains out.”

“I suppose so,” Karl said, looking Rosemary over. “Do you regret it?”

Rosemary shook her head, her short curls bouncing and a bright grin spreading across her face. “No, I'm trying to figure out when we can do it again.”

Karl let out a little sigh of relief, then gave it some serious thought. “In morning,” he said. “Recovery period is necessary at my age.”

Rosemary’s face was a picture of amused delight. “Do you want to spend the night?”

Karl felt his mouth go dry. And then he nodded.

“Then it's an accord,” Rosemary said in a mock serious tone, before leaning in close to him. “Now, how about we seal it with a kiss?”

Karl smiled and complied.

* * *

_January 7th, 1991_

By Christmas, finding an apartment off-campus had gone from an annoyance to be avoided for the next year or so to a sudden, desperate necessity. After all, the apartments on Goddard’s campus, while spacious enough for a single person, were awfully crowded for a couple who each needed some space of their own… and Rosemary had spent every night since Thanksgiving sleeping in the same bed as Karl, whether in her apartment or his. By now, both of them were getting a little sick of doing the walk of shame first thing in the morning, even if neither of them felt particularly shamed by it.

So here they were, first thing in the new year, searching for an apartment together.

“What do you think?” Rosemary asked, tucking her arm through Karl’s. He was looking around the second bedroom of the apartment with a frown on his face.

“It is close to campus…”

“But not much more to recommend it than plenty of space and a short commute, is there?” Rosemary whispered, feeling disappointed. It was their best lead so far for an apartment that met the most basic of their requirements.

Karl sighed. “We will most likely not spend much time here, you know.”

Rosemary sighed as well. “I know. But…”

The agent poked her head into the bedroom they were inspecting. “Well, folks? Ready to sign a contract?”

Rosemary shot a sunny smile the woman’s direction. “I think my friend and I have to talk about it. Can we get back to you in a day or two?”

The agent looked dubious. “Wellll… I do have another couple coming in to look at it later this afternoon…”

“We will take it,” Karl said firmly.

“Karl?”

He looked down at Rosemary, an almost-imperceptible smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “We will most likely not spend much time here. But what time I do spend here, I would like to spend with you,” he murmured.

Rosemary felt her cheeks heat in a blush. “Flirt.”

“No one has ever accused me of being such a thing in my life,” Karl responded drily.

“Fine. We’ll take it,” Rosemary said, turning back to the agent, who had been looking on with an awkward smile on her face.

“Excellent. I’ll go draw up the paperwork.” The agent left the room.

Rosemary frowned up at Karl. “You’re still sure you want to do this? It’s only been a month, you know. And things like this never last. Goddard makes it hard. Work always comes first, in the end, for all of us.”

Karl lifted a hand to Rosemary’s cheek and rubbed his thumb across her cheekbone, that hint of a smile becoming a real one. “I think that I am old enough to know my own mind, Rosemary. And…” he hesitated, a little frown replacing the smile. “And I think that perhaps we are both old enough that neither of us wish to waste what time we have left.”

Rosemary blinked away the tears that were threatening and flung herself against Karl’s chest, crushing him to her in a tight, fierce hug, unable to answer in any other way.

* * *

_May 18th, 1993_

Karl frowned down at the memo in his hand. Three years ago, he had been hoping more than anything to receive such a thing, but now… He sighed and folded it into a small square, tucking it into his trouser pocket, then finished the last few tasks necessary to make his lab ready for the night and left for the floor below.

Rosemary was finishing up a row of petri dishes, swabbing some solution or other carefully onto them and then transferring them to the incubation chamber. Karl waited just inside the door of her lab, leaning against the wall, admiring the smooth and well-practiced efficiency of her movements.

She was always at her most beautiful when in motion.

A few minutes later, she had wrapped up what she was working on and joined him at the door. “Thanks for waiting, _Kirocha_,” she murmured, standing on her tiptoes to brush a kiss against his cheek.

“Rosemary.” He said her name with a smile, pulling her close and kissing her properly. Perhaps he would put off discussing the paper in his pocket for tonight. They could have one more night, uninterrupted by difficult discussions.

He should have known better, given Rosemary’s ability to ferret out even the most obscure of rumors and sift them for the truth.

“I hear you’ll be going to space next year,” she said as they sat down to dinner.

Karl started so hard that he almost fell out of his chair. “I only got memo this afternoon.”

“You’re excited?”

He frowned down at the mix of leftovers on his plate. “It is an 18 month rotation.”

“They don’t do them much shorter than that. Not if you’re going somewhere far enough away to get close to some really exciting stellar radiation.” Rosemary’s tone was nonchalant, but the set of her shoulders was tense.

“I am not certain…” Karl sighed. “Rosemary…”

She was studying him with a little frown between her eyebrows. “I was expecting it, you know. You’re coming up on your first five years. That’s about when they start thinking about sending people to space.” She looked down at the table, picking up her fork… and poking listlessly at the contents of her plate.

“What happens to… to this when I go to space?” Karl gestured at the kitchen around them. “What happens to us?”

“Well, we can put your things into storage—Goddard has on-site facilities for that, you know—”

Karl was suddenly angry. “That is not what I meant.”

Rosemary sighed. “I know. But Karl… things don’t last here, you know. It was always going to end, one way or another. In some ways, this is easier. It makes for a nice clean break.”

They had discussed such things before, when they had first decided to move in together. But somehow, over the past few years, Karl had forgotten that it might ever end.

“Marry me,” he said quietly.

“_Kirocha_…”

“If I must go, let us get married before I do.”

Rosemary set her fork down, pressed her palms into the edge of the table, took a deep, painful-sounding breath. “No.”

* * *

_January 14th, 1994_

They had not discussed the question of marriage again after that night the past May, when Karl had first received the news of his mission. They’d fought about it, fiercely, but Rosemary had stuck to her guns, remembering every relationship she had seen fall to pieces over the years, torn apart by the pressures of Goddard. “I might be in space again myself by the time you get back,” she had said, the final clincher in the argument. “What’s the point of getting married if you never see each other?”

So it was with the greatest confusion that Rosemary found herself facing Karl in what was still _their_ kitchen, but which would be just hers in a few short days when his mission launched. He was holding a ring—not gold, something silvery, perhaps titanium—and looking at her earnestly.

“All I am asking is for you to wear this while I am gone,” he said in a low voice. “Perhaps when I return, you will no longer be waiting. But at least…” he took her right hand in his, and slid the ring on to her ring finger. To her surprise, it fit. “At least if you still wear this, I will know that you remember me fondly, _da_?”

She considered removing the ring, pressing it back into his palm, closing his fingers around it, a rejection of the three years they’d spent together.

She didn’t have it in her heart to do so.

“There isn’t time to get a ring resized before you go,” she said, pulling her hand out of his and making a dash for the bedroom that contained most of her possessions. She heard Karl’s footsteps following her, acknowledged him with a little nod as she dug under her bed for a particular shoebox, opening several before finding the one she needed and pulling out the ring box inside. “Here.” She opened it, and chose her father’s ring. It still wouldn’t fit him properly, but it wouldn’t be as huge on his finger as her mother’s ring would be.

Karl dropped to her side on the floor, his eyes luminous with tears as he took the ring and tried it on each of his fingers, finally settling for shoving it to the base of his right thumb. “I will have to wear it on a chain while I am in space,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It does not matter if it does not fit. All that matters is…” He lifted his hands to cup her face and leaned in to kiss her gently, then pulled back to rest his forehead against hers, a gentle, tender gesture. “I love you.”

Rosemary found she was crying. “I love you too. Be safe out there, all right?”

“I promise.”

* * *

_August 17th, 1998_

After Rosemary’s dire prediction that she would be in space again herself by the time his rotation was over, it had not come as much of a surprise to return to Earth and find her about to leave on a rotation of her own.

She had still been wearing his ring.

And more than that, she had waited for him.

It had only been a few weeks, short and sweet and glorious, and Karl had stored them away, intending to parcel those memories out a moment at a time over the next eighteen months.

Now, of course, they would have to last a lifetime.

Hestia Station had gone out of contact entirely two months before; the fastest ship in Goddard’s fleet had been sent out, and today…

…today they had finally received news that the Hestia was gone, no sign left of it around the star it had been orbiting, no debris, no trail of radiation, simply… nothing. It was as if the Hestia had never existed.

Rosemary had been right. Nothing lasted here.

Nothing except the work that must be done.

He clenched his hand to his chest convulsively, feeling out the shape of the ring that was still on the chain around his neck. He released it, and lifted his hands to his neck, planning to remove it, planning to put it in a box somewhere and forget it.

He could not quite bring himself to do it.

* * *

_May 14th, 2016_

None of them had wanted to venture there again—not after Renée had glanced in shortly after their disastrous coup and had been thoroughly sick as a result—but the problem was, the secret room where Alexander Hilbert had met his thoroughly violent end was deep in Engineering… and some of the remains had been leaking out and gumming up the works. So she and Lovelace had suited up, not wanting to face that mess with bare skin, and had gathered up what supplies would be necessary to remove what was left of him from the floor. And the ceiling. And the walls.

It was nasty work. Easier if they both let themselves forget that this had once been a person, but that was not an easy thing to forget. Not when it was Renée’s failure that had lead to this.

“Huh.” Lovelace’s voice echoed over the coms, and Renée glanced her way.

“What?”

“Was this Selberg’s, do you think? Or is this just part of the wall?”

Renée kicked off the nearest wall and crossed to Lovelace’s side. A gold ring was partially flattened and lodged deep in the metal of the wall, which itself was mangled from concussive force. “It’s his.” Or probably, at least. She had found a gold ring on a chain around Hilbert’s neck when she had searched his unconscious body after his attempted mutiny, had confiscated it when she chained him up… and had returned it to him a few weeks back. He had made no comment when she had returned the ring; he had simply fastened the necklace around his neck once more and had tucked the entire thing deep under his clothing.

“I can’t imagine anyone wanting to marry that bastard,” Lovelace spat.

“It might not have been a wedding ring.” Though the expression on Hilbert’s face when she had returned it to him made Renée think otherwise.

“Yeah, guess not.” Isabel scratched at it with the glove of her suit, but it didn’t come loose. “So should we try and get it out of the wall…?”

“Leave it,” Renée said abruptly. “It’s not disrupting anything, and anyway, we’re almost done in here. I’m ready to shut this place up and forget about it.”

“All right, fine.” Lovelace scraped at the ring once more, then sighed and left it, moving across the room to snag one of the bags that was taped to the wall, and then another. “Let’s figure out how to dispose of this, then.”

“Toss it in the star?”

“Too good for him.”

“Lovelace…”

“What?”

“I miss him too.”

“Yeah.”


End file.
